So, it’s been a long time since I last checked in here, but at least we have some good excuses.

Last Monday, Betsy started a new job. The story of what happened to her old employer is a long and sordid tale, but suffice to say, getting out of there was a very positive move for her. She’s now going to be working for a farm out in the Fall City / Carnation area – her daily work will be much the same, but it’s both a more interesting environment (working in a barn, surrounded by fields of veggies, parking in the mud with the farm dogs running around) and a more difficult environment (did I mention it’s in Fall City? We’re looking at about an hour-long commute on a good day).

Then, on the drive home from her first day on the new job, our old car broke down. Betsy’s parents bought that car back in 1989 when it was brand new. Between various members of the family, they put nearly 19 years and over 240,000 miles on the car. However, after that amount of time, it was definitely starting to show its age – oil leaks needing a new quart every couple of weeks, squealing brakes, rattling steering, bad tires, etc. The final straw was a timing belt, and while we could have fixed that, it was really time to let that car go off to car heaven. So on the same evening that it broke down, we went out and got ourselves a new (to us) car. It’s pretty sweet to be driving something that was made this decade. Did you know that they are putting CD players in cars now? And with all four speakers working, too! Incredible.

And finally, I’m starting a new job on Tuesday in Bellevue. I’ll be leading a team of people who maintain and troubleshoot SharePoint websites for various clients – our big client being Microsoft. I’d been with my previous employer for nearly 5 years, so this is a pretty huge change for me – but one that I’m really excited about.

So, we haven’t been doing anything specifically related to adoption recently, but in another way, everything we do is related to adoption. One of the reasons why Betsy took her new job is that is has the potential to turn into a part-time telecommuting job in the future – if she was able to log even 10 hours of work a week when she’s at home with Eelfang, that would help out with the bills tremendously (assuming, of course, that she has the energy to work part-time and raise our child full-time – that might be a big thing to ask for).

For the car, it’s been a long point of contention between us about whether or not the old car was suitable for a family. Betsy, in her embrace of simplicity and not wasting things, wanted to drive the car until it stopped working, and only buy a new one when it was absolutely necessary. Todd, in his embrace of being neurotic and a worry-wart, was not at all comfortable with the idea of putting both his wife and his child in a car that was anything but supremely safe and reliable. The car dying now was as good of a compromise as we could hope for, and the new car was definitely bought with the idea of spending a little bit more for reliability, safety and a long-lasting future.

For me, I’ve been looking around for a new job for a while now. I had worked with my manager to try to expand/extend my current role, but it just wasn’t in the budget, and to keep growing my career, it was obvious that I had to look outside. Additionally, there had been a lot of changes in the past couple years, and I wasn’t 100% comfortable with all of them. I had been looking pretty aggressively last year for a new position, but came up empty.

Once we got in the pool, I assumed that I would have to wait until after the adoption happened. It would be difficult to find a new employer who was okay with my “I may need to leave for several weeks with only a few minutes notice” requirement, so I figured I’d have to grit my teeth and stick it out for a while longer. I stopped looking for a new job, and as these things often happen, as soon as I stopped looking, a great opportunity fell in my lap, and with a company that is extremely employee-focused and more than willing to work with my requirements.

Insurance is the one tricky thing – my old insurance will go until the end of this month, and my new insurance will kick in at the new job on July 1st. So while it works out okay for my personal insurance, it would be exceedingly difficult to add a new baby during that time. So Betsy and I took a tiny step backwards – we’re marking ourselves as being unavailable for any adoption where the birthmother would be due before July 1st. The last-minute placements, therefore, are off the table for the next few weeks.

That’s actually probably a good thing – we’re still working on putting together the nursery, interviewing pediatricians, and putting together our emergency “we need to go RIGHT NOW” kit. I’ll write more about those processes in the next post.

Hey Todd. Got your comment on my blog. Totally excited for you guys!-and kinda jealous I’d love to have an open adoption but international and open don’t really work together. We’ve been home with Dene for 3 months now… Drop me an email I’d love to chat. I haven’t navigated your entire blog yet – how do YOU have the time to keep it up so nice? Oh, yeah, you don’t have Eelfang YET! Take care and best wishes as your adoption journey completes!